“The H?tel Lambert, right at the tip of the ?le Saint-Louis,” Nick offered.

“Yes, and there was a candlelit table for two set up on the roof. The moonlight was reflecting off the river, a cellist sat in the corner playing Debussy, everything was just perfect. Nick had hired this French Vietnamese chef from one of Paris’s top restaurants to prepare the most exquisite meal, but I was so nervous I completely lost my appetite.”

“In retrospect, a six-course tasting menu was probably not the best idea,” Nick mused.

Rachel nodded. “Every time the waiter lifted the silver dome from a dish, I thought I’d find a ring underneath. But nothing happened. By the time the dinner was over and the cellist began packing up her stuff, I thought, I guess tonight’s not the night. But then, as we were about to leave, we heard these horns coming from the river. It was one of those Bateaux Mouches tourist barges, and all these people were assembled on the top deck. As the barge passed below the building, music started blaring out of the loudspeakers and the people started leaping on the benches like gazelles. Turns out they were from the Paris Opera Ballet, and Nick had commissioned them to perform a special dance just for me.”

“How lovely!” Auntie Belinda gasped, finally impressed. “And after that did Nick propose?”

“Noooo! The performance ended and we began to descend the staircase. I was still on a high from seeing this amazingly choreographed performance, but a bit disappointed that it didn’t end in a proposal. So when we got downstairs, the street was deserted except for a guy standing under a tree overlooking the river. Then the guy started playing his guitar, and I recognized it was the Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be the Place’—the song that we had heard a street musician performing in Washington Square Park on the first night we met. The guy began to sing, and I suddenly realized it was the very same guy from the park!”

“Shut up!” Samantha clasped both hands to her mouth, as everyone in the room continued to listen in rapt attention.

“Nick had somehow tracked the singer down all the way in Austin and had flown him to Paris. He no longer had blond dreads, but I could never forget that voice. Then before I knew what was happening, Nick was down on one knee, staring up at me with a little velvet box in his hand. That’s when I completely lost it! I started bawling uncontrollably, and before Nick could finish asking me to marry him, I said yes, yes, yes and all the dancers on the barge began cheering like crazy.”

“That’s the coolest proposal I’ve ever heard!” Samantha gushed, wiping the tears from her eyes. When she had first heard about what had happened to Rachel in Singapore, Samantha had been furious with Nick. How could he not have noticed how badly Rachel was being treated? Rachel had moved out of Nick’s place immediately after returning from Asia, and Samantha was glad her cousin was rid of him. But as the months passed and Rachel began to see Nick again, Samantha found herself having a change of heart as well. After all, he had come to Rachel’s rescue and sacrificed his relationship with his own family to be with her. He had waited patiently in the wings, giving Rachel all the time she needed to heal. And now they were getting married at long last.

“Well done, Nick! We’re all looking forward to the big day next month in Montecito!” Uncle Ray declared.

“We decided to spend a few extra nights at Ojai Valley Inn and Spa,” bragged Auntie Belinda, looking around the table to make sure all the family had heard her.

Rachel chuckled to herself, knowing that her other relatives wouldn’t even have a clue what Belinda was talking about. “That sounds wonderful. I wish we had the time to do something like that. We’re going to have to wait till the semester ends in May before we go on our honeymoon.”

“But weren’t you and Nick just in China?” Uncle Ray inquired.

Rachel’s auntie Jin tried to make eyes at Ray from across the table, warning him off the topic, while his wife pinched him hard on his left thigh. “Owww!” he let out before realizing his gaffe. Belinda had told him that Rachel and Nick had been to Fuzhou again, chasing yet another false lead in the search for her father, but this apparently was another in a long list of family secrets he wasn’t supposed to talk about.

“Yes, we made a short trip,” Nick answered quickly.

“Well, you two are brave souls. I for one cannot stomach any of the food over there. I don’t care how ‘gourmet’ they say the food has gotten, all their animals are loaded with carcinogens. And look at this duck you’re all eating! I bet it was fed with growth hormones too,” Auntie Belinda scoffed as she gnawed on her turnip.

Rachel stared at the plump roast duck with its glossy amber sheen, suddenly losing her appetite.

“Yes, you can trust the food in Hong Kong, but not anywhere on the Mainland,” Auntie Jin said, deftly removing every bit of fat from her roast duck with her chopsticks.

“That’s just not true!” Samantha argued. “Why are you guys still so prejudiced against China? When I was there last year, I had some of the best meals of my life. You really haven’t had good xiao long bao*3 until you’ve eaten it in Shanghai.”

At the end of the table, Great-auntie Louise, the oldest member of the Chu clan, suddenly blurted out, “Rachel, what news of your father? Have you found him yet?”

Cousin Dave spat out a half-chewed piece of barbecued pork in surprise. The dining room fell silent, a few people exchanging furtive glances. Rachel’s face clouded over a bit. She inhaled deeply before responding, “No, we haven’t found him.”

Nick grasped Rachel’s hand and added encouragingly, “We thought we had a very interesting prospect last month, but that didn’t pan out.”

“Things can be very tricky over there,” Uncle Ray mused, trying for one more jumbo shrimp fritter but finding his hand smacked away by his wife.

“At least we are certain now that Rachel’s father changed his name. Because all official documentation of him stops in 1985, shortly before he graduated from Beijing University,” Nick explained.

“Speaking of universities, does everyone know that Penny Shi’s daughter, who was the class valedictorian at Los Gatos, didn’t get into any of the Ivy League schools that she applied to?” Auntie Jin chirped, trying to change the subject. It was so dreadful to bring up Rachel’s father in front of Kerry, Rachel’s mother, who had already suffered enough over the past three decades as a single parent.

Cousin Henry, ignoring his auntie Jin’s remark, chimed in, volunteering, “You know, my firm works with this amazing lawyer based out of Shanghai. Her father is very high up in the government and she’s super-well-connected. Do you want me to see if she can help out?”

Kerry, who had been silent until now, suddenly slammed her chopsticks onto the table and said, “Hiyah, this is all such a waste of time. It’s no use chasing ghosts!”

Rachel looked at her mother for a moment. Then she got up from the table and walked out of the room without a word.

Samantha spoke up, her voice cracking a little with emotion. “He’s not a ghost, Auntie Kerry. He’s her father, and she has a right to have some sort of relationship with him. I can’t even imagine what my life would be like without my dad. Can you blame Rachel for wanting to find him?”

* * *

*1 A nickname for “fresh off the boat” Asian immigrants, used mainly by second-, third-, or fourth-generation Asian Americans to denote their superiority.

*2 Joel Arthur Rosenthal, aka JAR of Paris, whose precious handmade jewels are among the most coveted in the world. If Belinda had a more discerning eye, she might have realized that Rachel’s ring was a flawless oval-cut diamond held in place by ribbons of white gold almost as thin as hairs, interwoven with tiny blue sapphires. (Nick would not tell Rachel how much he paid for it.)

*3 Dumplings filled with meat and piping hot broth that—due to their increased popularity in recent years on the international food scene—have been scalding uninitiated mouths around the world.

3

SCOTTS ROAD

SINGAPORE, FEBRUARY 9, 2013